(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a silver halide photographic material containing a dye, and more particularly to a silver halide photographic material having a hydrophilic colloid layer that is colored with a dye which is photochemically inactive and will be decolored and/or will dissolve out easily in a photographic processing step.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
In silver halide photographic materials, for the purpose of absorbing light having a specific wavelength range, a photographic emulsion layer or other layer is often colored.
When it is required to control the spectral composition of the incident light over the photographic emulsion layer, a colored layer is provided farther away from the base than the photographic emulsion layer on the photographic material. Such a colored layer is called a filter layer. When plural photographic emulsion layers are present as a multi-color photographic material, sometimes filter layers are situated between them.
To prevent blurring of an image, that is, halation caused when light scattered during or after its passage through the photographic emulsion layer is reflected by the interface between the emulsion layer and the base, or by the surface of the photographic material opposite the emulsion layer, thereby again falling into the photographic emulsion layer, a colored layer is provided between the photographic emulsion layer and the base, or on the surface of the base opposite the photographic emulsion layer. Such a colored layer is called an antihalation layer. For multi-color photographic material, sometimes an antihalation layer is provided between the layers.
To prevent the sharpness of an image from lowering due to the scattering of light in a photographic emulsion layer (such lowering is generally called irradiation), in some cases the photographic layer is colored.
These layers to be colored, in many cases, consist of hydrophilic colloid, and therefore in order to color them water-soluble dyes are generally incorporated into the layers. Such dyes are required to meet the following conditions:
(1) The dye has suitable spectral absorption in compliance with the purpose of the application.
(2) The dye is photochemically inactive. That is, the dye does not adversely affect chemically the performance of the silver halide photographic emulsion layer, and, for example, it does not allow the sensitivity to lower, the latent image to fade, or the image to fog.
(3) The dye is decolored or dissolved and eliminated in a photographic processing step, leaving no detrimental color on the processed photographic material.
Those skilled in the art have made many efforts to find dyes meeting these conditions, and the following dyes are known: oxonol dyes having a pyrazolone nucleus or a barbituric acid nucleus described, for example, in British Pat. Nos. 506,385, 1,177,429, 1,311,884, 1,338,799, 1,385,371, 1,467,214, 1,433,102, and 1,553,516, JP-A ("JP-A" means unexamined Japanese patent application) Nos. 85130/1973, 114420/1974, 161233/1980, and 111640/1984, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,247,127, 3,469,985, and 4,078,933, and oxonol dyes having a hydroxypyridone described, for example, in British Pat. Nos. 1,278,621, 1,512,863, 1,521,083, and 1,579,899.
It is not rare that hydroxypyridone oxonol dyes hitherto known have adverse effects in a photographic emulsion (for example lowering of the sensitivity, considered due to desorption of a sensitizing dye caused by them or their spectral sensitization). Some hydroxypyridone oxonol dyes leave a detrimental color on the processed photographic image depending on the type of rapid development processing that has been performed recently. To solve this, although it is suggested to use a dye highly reactive with sulfite ions or hydroxy ions, this has the defect that the stability in the photographic film is inadequate and the concentration lowers with time, thus not delivering the desired photographic effect. Further, in many cases the layer to be colored is composed of a hydrophilic colloid, and therefore the dye with which the layer is colored must be soluble in water.
The silver halide photographic material suggested by the present invention contains a new water-soluble dye in a photographic emulsion layer or other layer.